Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#81

Post by poletopole » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

The new iPad Pro and magic keyboard. Look into Tailscale, it makes it incredibly easy for me to ssh into my mac or a VPS. As for apps for iPad, I highly recommend the following:

1. Muse: awesome workspace app.

2. Ulysses: best MD app hands down.

3. Gladys: good clipboard.

4. Kodex: best ipad code editor.

5. Prompt: best ipad ssh client.

6. Working copy: good git client.

7. Kaleidoscope: diffing files.

8. Jira: pretty well done.

9. Documents: good for ftp.

10. Copied: good for bookmarking.

11. Goodnotes: best notebook app.

I’m seriously thinking about selling my imac because I haven’t used it since I got my ipad pro. I think I’ll sell it and build a RaspPi machine, ha.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#82

Post by ambivalents » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

canofbars wrote: post #71

ambivalents wrote: post #61

1) My dog. Does this count as hardware? :) It is not an overstatement to say he's changed my life. 2) iPad + Apple Pencil. I can access the ever-elusive flow state by drawing/sketching/coloring with the drawing program ProCreate.

Also got the ipad (air 4). Wanted to get in to drawing and after ages evaluating all the offerings I concluded that an ipad + pencil is actually better value than the stuff wacom provides even if you completely ignore all the other stuff you can use the ipad for. Loved the thing so far. I just hope they come out with a 16" ipad eventually.

100%! I got the air4 too and am really happy with it. Procreate alone (which is just $9.99, I was honestly prepared to pay a lot more and thought it'd be akin to Photoshop level pricing) makes it worth it.

I've also downloaded all my kindle books and my spotify library, so between drawing, reading, and music/podcasts, it has everything I need to keep me entertained.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#83

Post by ambivalents » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

poletopole wrote: post #80

ambivalents wrote: post #61

1) My dog. Does this count as hardware? :) It is not an overstatement to say he's changed my life. 2) iPad + Apple Pencil. I can access the ever-elusive flow state by drawing/sketching/coloring with the drawing program ProCreate.

I’ve been looking for a good drawing app for ipad. Is ProCreate easy to learn?

I believe so, however I already have a little experience with some of the concepts they use (layers particularly, although that's not too hard to grasp). Then again I'm probably only using 10% of its true capacity.

What I did was search for a few simple Procreate youtube tutorials and mimic them. I found these ones good--even if the end product isn't something you are aiming for, you get the basics down in creating them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqRhbjUQ7Qg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJQpezkDuCQ&t=876s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZI-qM7PdDM

I've tried Adobe Sketch and a couple other smaller names, and Procreate is the best to me so far. It has a HUGE community behind it, so similar to a popular programming library like React, you'll be able to find a ton of online resources to help you.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#84

Post by andrei_says_ » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

jjice wrote: post #50

marcolussetti wrote: post #33

An eReader. I was skeptical, but it's pushed me to move to reading more books and less social media. Still a long way to go to achieve a better balance there, but significant results so far.

What eReader did you choose?

Not op but I got boox nova 3 and love it. 7.8” 300ppi lit screen, Wacom stylus, android 10, long battery life.

I have the kindle and pocket apps. It has its own reader for ePub pdf etc.

https://www.boox.com/boox-nova/

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#85

Post by boublepop » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

axaxs wrote: post #7

Air Fryer. I was always the pessimist...it's just a convection oven afterall, right. Finally bought one and am a convert. We use that thing almost daily.

I’ve been considering getting one. What’s been your best usages and do you have some recurring recipes or do you vary time for time?

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#86

Post by mattmanser » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

jjice wrote: post #50

marcolussetti wrote: post #33

An eReader. I was skeptical, but it's pushed me to move to reading more books and less social media. Still a long way to go to achieve a better balance there, but significant results so far.

What eReader did you choose?

Not op, bit I have a Kindle papetwhite bought in 2014.

Absolutely fantastic, though I have a few bright spots because I am very blasé about just throwing it in my bag, so I'd probably think about getting a flip cover for my next one.

The only annoyance is the mobi format restriction, but it's quite easy to convert epub in calibre and then you can just email it to your kindle. Having the app on my phone too means I can continue a book in a queue/taxi/bus if I've not the kindle with me.

It's not worth getting the one with internet connection if they still have that, the rare cases I want to buy a book on the go, I just make a hotspot with my phone.

Basically my favourite bit of tech.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#87

Post by simonebrunozzi » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #79

fy20 wrote: post #11

A gas-lift monitor arm from Amazon (€30). I always find monitors too low, and I bend my head forward too much, especially when standing at a desk. This ends up causing me shoulder tension, or I end up slouching on the chair so the monitor is at eye level. Now I don't have any problems! I thought given it was relatively cheap (last time I looked half a decade or more ago they were closer to €100), it would not be very…

Link to item?

Something like this, I guess [0].

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Single-Monitor-Mount-Articulating-Adj...

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#88

Post by simonebrunozzi » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

motyar wrote: post #68

Land lot and iPhone 7

> Land lot

How was your buying experience? I used to be involved with Fabrica, a way to buy/sell really quickly. [0]

[0]: http://fabrica.land/

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#89

Post by cpach » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

nefitty wrote: post #62

cpach wrote: post #40

Eero 3-pack (mesh wifi system). A used Macbook Air from ~2014. A piano. A shirt of decent quality. A good pair of sandals. Another linen dishcloth for the kitchen. I can’t remember if I bought any new software this year, but I still pay every year for Evernote. Despite its warts I get lots of use from it. (^_^)

Have you ever tried the sponges with soap dispensing handles? They’ve made dishwashing so much more tolerable for me lol

I have! Not my cup of tea (^_^)

Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

#90

Post by polka_haunts_us » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 10:40 PM UTC

mparis wrote: post #2

Fun: Rossignol black ops gamer 118 skis. They shred. Coffee: Kalita 185 pour over coffee maker. Inexpensive, high quality coffee. Also the porlex mini burr grinder. Software: IntelliJ Ultimate/Clion for rust dev. Historically a VS Code guy but jetbrains products are great when you have enough horse power to run them. Speakers: UE mega boom 3. Waterproof & great sound. Book: Victor Frankls man’s search for meaning. Fo…

I cannot agree more on the JetBrains stuff. I historically had a poor opinion of IntelliJ due to running it on a underpowered laptop in college, but I decided to try WebStorm on a whim for a different project, which led to me trialing Resharper at work, and in the span of about 4 days I've gone from "IntelliJ is overrated" to "How exactly did I function without this company before".